Since I have been following government in South Dakota and Sioux Falls I have often been of the opinion that we don’t have to do things like they do in Washington. We can actually make lives better in this community if we tackle these three issues in our local government and eliminate them;
GREED & CORRUPTION
We need to end policies at city hall that are lining the pockets of the elite in Sioux Falls while cutting these deals with campaign donors and friends of the administration. I’m not blaming the current mayor for this (yet), I’m just saying there seems to be a culture of lucrative deals for the well connected.
LACK OF COMMON SENSE
I have often argued the quickest and best solutions to problems is looking at the obvious. For instance, it is obvious we have a pothole problem in Sioux Falls, so let’s ramp up filling them (which the city did). The city too often looks to consultants, study groups and other professionals in the know when sometimes the most practical solutions are staring us in the face. The city needs to stop over thinking solutions. Look to other cities and what has worked for them, and implement them.
CLOSED GOVERNMENT – LACK OF TRANSPARENCY
You have heard me say it a million times; open government saves taxpayers money and prevents corruption. It also builds trust amongst your constituents.
We need to open the books in Sioux Falls and take as much public input as we can handle. Having a select group of well connected administrators and councilors make decisions behind closed doors always turns out badly and corrodes public trust.
Is Sioux Falls a good community? I think so, otherwise I wouldn’t be blogging about it, but I also think we are missing massive amounts of opportunities for EVERYONE like better wages and better housing to top notch infrastructure because we continue to languish under dictatorship/authoritarian type rule from city hall on down. We don’t need to re-write the charter or change city government from the ground up. We just need to eliminate these three monkeys on our backs and everything else will fall into place.